Results from a new study from the Fordham Institute find truth in what educators have long said: Achievement gaps in school are impacted by factors outside of a local educational agency’s control, such as exposure to poverty and racial inequities.

Researchers concluded, however, there are still steps that education and state officials can take to mitigate the effects of outside variables on children once they’re at school.

Using data from the National Center for Education Statistics’ Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010–11, Fordham researchers were able to track the same children from kindergarten through fifth grade, taking into account “opportunity factors” — or socioeconomic status measures — in children’s lives.

These factors include cognitive stimulation (e.g., playing games or doing arts and crafts), emergent literacy activities (e.g., reading to one’s child; number of books the child owns), parent-child activities (e.g., visits to the zoo, bookstore or library), family rules for watching TV (e.g., how much time the child is allowed to watch TV and when), household income and parents’ jobs and education levels.

According to the report, these factors are intertwined. “One factor for racial/ethnic achievement gaps is between-group differences in socioeconomic status (SES), particularly exposure to poverty. For example, Black and Hispanic students perform, on average, at significantly lower levels academically than Asian and white students, which is primarily because Black and Hispanic students are more likely to grow up in less-resourced homes and neighborhoods,” researchers wrote. “Moreover, other factors contributing to racial and ethnic achievement gaps include bias, cultural insensitivity, stereotypes, and individual and systemic racism. Here, socioeconomic factors are simply one part of the story. For example, why else would upper-middle-class Black students tend to perform worse than upper-middle-class white and Asian students? Or why do achievement gaps among fourth graders persist even when accounting for exposure to economic adversity?”

After creating a composite variable called “SES+” by combining the family SES variables — including household income and mother’s occupational status, with the home environment variables, such as parental warmth (e.g., expressions of love and affection) and emergent literacy activities — researchers made several determinations.

Taken together, family SES+ factors explain between 34 and 64 percent of the achievement gap between Black and white students (depending on subject and grade level) and between 51 and 77 percent of the achievement gap between Hispanic and white students.

For the Black-white reading achievement gap, “the reduction rate is notably decreased from first to fifth grade (64 percent to 48 percent). This suggests that SES+ is somewhat less influential in later grades for reading,” according to the report. The role of SES+ remained stable across grades for mathematics and science achievement gaps.

The Hispanic-white achievement gap was “considerably better explained by SES+ factors,” researchers noted. “All the analyses show that SES+ factors explain more than half of the achievement gap, and in some analyses, SES+ factors explain about three-fourths of the gaps, namely, in first grade reading (74 percent) and fifth grade reading (77 percent).”

SES+ factors were better able to explain the achievement gaps between Hispanic and white students in fifth grade than in first grade, regardless of subject, although mathematics and science achievement gaps across grades were more substantial than in reading. “SES+ factors explain 59 percent and 51 percent of the math and science gaps, respectively, in first grade, but they explain 67 percent and 66 percent of those gaps, respectively, in fifth grade,” researchers wrote.

Home factors help to explain initially observed racial and ethnic achievement gaps, but are less predictive over time. “Educational policy solutions should reflect this complexity, as well as the comprehensive nature of the problem,” the report states. “Any number of well-executed policies would likely narrow achievement gaps of all kinds.”

Recommendations for state and local policymakers include:

• Supporting programs to help parents earn their high school diplomas or higher education credentials by increasing access to adult education and lifelong learning opportunities. This could include funding for adult education classes, online learning platforms and community college courses.
• Investing in high-quality early childhood education, especially in underprivileged communities, since achievement gaps are already evident by elementary school, including as early as kindergarten.
• Providing economic support and financial aid for low-income families.
• Addressing racial and ethnic disparities by adopting policies and curricula that reflect diverse cultures and programs that specifically support underrepresented students.